patient completion of the magnificent works of Gothic architecture in the
middle ages is mainly to be attributed, had its branches in nether
Germany, and explains the presence of so many splendid and elaborately
finished churches in the provinces. There were also military sodalities
of musketeers, cross-bowmen, archers, swordsmen in every town. Once a
year these clubs kept holiday, choosing a king, who was selected for his
prowess and skill in the use of various weapons. These festivals, always
held with great solemnity and rejoicing, were accompanied bye many
exhibitions of archery and swordsmanship. The people were not likely,
therefore, voluntarily to abandon that privilege and duty of freemen, the
right to bear arms, and the power to handle them.

Another and most important collection of brotherhoods were the so-called
guilds of Rhetoric, which existed, in greater or less number, in all the
principal cities. These were associations of mechanics, for the purpose
of amusing their leisure with poetical effusions, dramatic and musical
exhibitions, theatrical processions, and other harmless and not inelegant
recreations. Such chambers of rhetoric came originally in the fifteenth
century from France. The fact that in their very title they confounded
rhetoric with poetry and the drama indicates the meagre attainments of
these early "Rederykers." In the outset of their career they gave
theatrical exhibitions. "King Herod and his Deeds" was enacted in the
cathedral at Utrecht in 1418. The associations spread with great
celerity throughout the Netherlands, and, as they were all connected with
each other, and in habits of periodical intercourse, these humble links
of literature were of great value in drawing the people of the provinces
into closer union. They became, likewise, important political engines.
As early as the time of Philip the Good, their songs and lampoons became
so offensive to the arbitrary notions of the Burgundian government, as to
cause the societies to be prohibited. It was, however, out of the